President Donald Trump is expected to fire VA Secretary David Shulkin and is strongly considering replacing him with U.S. Army Veteran Pete Hegseth, according to three sources who spoke to Townhall under the condition of anonymity. It has been rumored former Texas Governor Rick Perry is also on the list for the job.It has been widely reported President Trump called Hegseth on Monday during a meeting with Shulkin in the Oval Office to go over options for reform. According to Axios, Trump specifically asked Hegseth to analyze new VA legislation while Shulkin listened in on speaker phone. Since Shulkin took over, the...

March 9 (UPI) -- Orbital ATK has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Air Force for services in support of aircraft for the Afghanistan Air Force. The deal, announced Thursday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $86.4 million under the terms of a firm-fixed-price, undefinitized contract. The agreement between the U.S. Air Force and Orbital ATK will provide the Afghan Air Force with an AC-208 Eliminator, an armed intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. The aircraft is equipped with AGM-114 HELLFIRE missile payloads. Work on the contract will occur in Fort Worth, Texas, and is expected...

It's past time the United States did some soul-searching and accept responsibility for exacerbating an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. This will require a rethink of Washington's current handling of Afghanistan and indeed its entire view of the region. Steve Coll recently made a cogent argument in the New York Times that the U.S. should seriously engage with China and other regional powers. However, this is impossible so long as Washington remains convinced that Pakistan alone is the primary impediment to peace rather than its own mistakes... Both Islamabad and Washington compete to wear the cloak of victimhood. Pakistan remains in...

Another very good article by Pilger. Gavin. Please visit my nonprofit website. Exposing the Cancer Racket. Gavin. Please Click Here JOHN PILGER: THIS WAR OF LIES GOES ON Click Here Legendary foreign correspondent argues the conflict is a sham.. not one terrorist has either been caught or killed There is no victory in Afghanistan's tribal war, only the exchange of one group of killers for another. The difference is that President Bush calls the latest occupiers of Kabul "our friends". However welcome the scenes of people playing music and shaving off their beards, this so-called Northern Alliance are no bringers ...

The decision marks a victory for the nearly 64,000 active service members and retirees who have put their names on a Burn Pit Registry created by the Veterans Administration, bringing them one step closer to getting adequate medical coverage, something that has never been guaranteed. Private contractors who were also exposed to the burn pit toxins also have been denied coverage.

On December 8, 2017, the leader of Iraq’s Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq Qais al-Khazali paid a visit to the Lebanese-Israeli border to inspect Lebanese “Hezbollah” resistance positions and to issue a threat to the southern neighbor. In a leaked video, he was shown as saying: “We are here with ‘Hezbollah’ and we announce our complete readiness to stand side by side with the Lebanese people and Palestinian cause against the Israeli occupation.” Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, or Khazali Network, is affiliated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). -excerpt- His statement however demonstrated the common interests of pro-Iran regional militias to allow Tehran...

Feb 11 is normally a day for rallies all over the country in Iran. It is the anniversary of the Islamic revolution. All over the country, people boycotted the rallies. The regime did their best to scare people in participating, threatening punishment & threatening people's jobs for not participating. School children & their teachers were forced to participate. Many of those who were forced were reluctant to join in, as videos showed only a small group answering to the calls for chants on loudspeakers. As usual, the regime sent buses to transport people to rallies in other cities to try...

US President Donald Trump today unveiled a US$ 4 trillion annual budget for the fiscal 2019 beginning October 1, proposing US$ 256 million in civilian assistance and US$ 80 million in military aid to Pakistan. The proposal of aid to Pakistan comes weeks after Trump administration suspended nearly US$ 2 billion in security assistance to Islamabad due to its inability to take action against terrorist groups operating from its soil. The White House has said it would consider lifting the freeze if it sees action by Pakistan against terrorist groups. The budgetary proposal says that the military aid depends on...

Major who led unit calls for more public apology The United States Marine Corps has finally exonerated a group of special forces Marines accused of war crimes in connection to a 2007 ambush in Afghanistan. Major General Frederick M. Padilla, speaking on behalf of Commandant General Robert B. Neller, sent a letter to Rep. Walter Jones (R., N.C.) acknowledging that seven members of the Marine Corps' first special forces unit acted appropriately when they returned fire following a suicide bombing and ambush from enemy forces. Padilla quoted from a 2008 Marine Corps Court of Inquiry, saying the Marines "acted appropriately"...

The leading Democratic candidate for a Virginia House seat the party is targeting in 2018 moved to the state just a year-and-a-half ago, but you'd never know it from watching his campaign's first ad.Roger Dean Huffstetler, who is both outraising and outspending his Democratic opponents in Virginia's largely rural fifth district, announced his campaign less than a year after he moved in the summer of 2016 to Charlottesville, a blue city located near the center of a rural red district. His first ad—which, based on a nearly $50,000 expenditure, appears to have been created by a major D.C. advertising firm...

US B-52 bomber unleashes record-setting payload FEBRUARY 7, 2018 A US Air Force B-52 bomber launched a record-setting series of strikes this week in northern Afghanistan — dropping 24 precision-guided munitions on Taliban fighting positions during 96 hours of air operations “to destroy insurgent revenue sources, training facilities, and support networks,” according to US Forces Afghanistan. The 24 precision-guided munitions dropped by the B-52 Stratofortress are the most ever dropped by one of the Air Force’s oldest active aircraft, the service said in a press release. Weighing 185,000 pounds, the B-52 first entered service in the 1950s during the height...

A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress, America’s longest-serving bomber, set a new record for the most smart bombs dropped on the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan revealed Tuesday. Shattering the previous record set in November, the American bomber dropped 24 precision-guided munitions during a 96-hour air campaign against Taliban training and narcotics facilities in Afghanistan, Fox News reports. The conventional rotary configuration on board allows the B-52s to easily unleash hell on the terrorists. “The Taliban have nowhere to hide,” Gen. John Nicholson, the unit commander, reportedly said in a statement. “There will be no safe haven for any...

The U.S. military is pulling its forces from an American-led coalition base in Iraq and shifting them to Afghanistan following the defeat of Islamic State group militants in the country. Western contractors at the base say U.S. troops began the drawdown over the past week, with groups of soldiers leaving the base on daily flights. The exact scale of the redeployment was unclear. According to various estimates, as of 2016, there were more 5,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Iraq, with nearly 4,000 deployed to support and assist local groups fighting ISIS militants. The remaining personnel included special operations forces,...

Captain Mark Nutsch rode past dead and dying men, the air filled with the iron scent of blood and the acrid stench of gunpowder. Smoke hovered above the field. The horsemen charging alongside him raised their rocket-propelled grenades and fired at the enemy ahead, the resulting explosions rocking them in their saddles. Would the plan work, or was it a death sentence? Either way, this was not how modern warfare was supposed to be fought. A cavalry charge, headlong into enemy gunfire – it was the sort of reckless risk of human life that belonged in the pages of a...

In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s...

<p>The protests started in Cottbus after Syrians attacked several Germans within a matter of days. For example a German man and a German boy were attacked with knives by Syrians. After other incidents, tensions in the town became so high that it stopped the acceptance of new refugees.</p>

An attacker driving an ambulance packed with explosives detonated them Saturday in the Afghan capital of Kabul, leaving 95 people dead and 191 others injured, Afghan officials said. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahid claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes a week after militants stormed a Kabul hotel. The blast occurred around 12:45 p.m. local time after the vehicle passed through a security checkpoint, Interior Ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi told CNN. Police identified the attacker at a second checkpoint, Rahimi said, but couldn't stop him before he detonated the explosives in a central area near the old Interior Ministry building, a...

KABUL — Islamic State gunmen stormed the offices of a British charity in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Wednesday morning, killing three people and wounding at least 20, officials said. The attack came as the country was still reeling from an even deadlier assault on an international hotel in Kabul on Saturday night that left at least 22 people dead. The toll could have been much higher in the course of the nine-hour gun battle between the militants and soldiers, but it appears that staff of the Save the Children charity were able to hide in a “safe...

The new war drama 12 Strong begins with a news clip about the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. It then flashes to clips featuring the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.The feature then flashes to a house where young father Mitch Nelson (Chris Hemsworth) is introduced at home with his wife and child. Nelson is a veteran who has finally returned home to the desk job he requested.Then, September 11th happens.Like so many others, Nelson recommits that day to facing down the enemy that made such an attack possible. Under the command of Max Bowers (played...

British 15-year-old gained access to intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be head of CIA, court hears A 15-year-old gained access to plans for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be the head of the CIA to gain access to his computers, a court has heard. From the bedroom of the Leicestershire home he shared with his mother, Kane Gamble used “social engineering” – where a person builds up a picture of information and uses it manipulate others into handing over more – to access the personal and work accounts of some of America's...